


Fixer Uppers

by worldturtling



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Babies, Family Fluff, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Interior Decorating, M/M, Marriage, home rennovating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2269032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldturtling/pseuds/worldturtling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you send your resignation letter to your brother, your manager, and your fans through a vlog all at once.</p><p>He has to leave out the part where he’s getting married or the network might sue him.</p><p>Dean/Benny fixeruppers au for anyone familiar with the HGTV show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixer Uppers

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavily the fault of me watching HGTV all summer.

Dean turns off his video camera after realizing he’s been staring at the red light glaring at him for far too long that he forgot to speak. He lost the words he wanted to say. They’re on a paper in his hands, printed out. There’s an outline. He’s thought long and hard about this.

The problem is the words don’t feel authentic.

How do you send your resignation letter to your brother, your manager, and your fans through a vlog all at once.

He has to leave out the part where he’s getting married or the network might sue him.

-

Dean goes offline for two years.

 _Property Bros_ doesn’t get renewed for another season. If Dean bothered to check the speculation on the forums…

Well he didn’t.

But Charlie informed him of theories about him and Sam fighting for fans and for recognition. Some were on Dean’s side and hated Dean consistently being dealt with the grunt work and receiving less recognition for his success than Sam, the realtor, who was more admired for his negotiation skills and hunts.

Dean stared at her for a while before swallowing that down. He loved doing the renovations. He loved finding the crap homes in good neighborhoods and giving them to good families that couldn’t afford to live in the area otherwise. He loved making the space for them a home. He loved every part of the renovation process from the demo days to putting on primer, to getting late calls asking if the wall they had just built could be extended for a new dining room instead. He took so much pride in his work that was so cathartic on every level, he definitely wouldn’t trade his work for what Sam did behind computers and dealing with people who wanted money and fine lines signed.

It was bizarre to him that people undervalued his work so much. So he pushed it aside with disbelief.

-

Ratings and agents told Sam he couldn’t do his own show without his brother, which was just as well, Dean thinks. Sam didn’t work too well with other people to begin with. He had heard about Sam getting shifted to house hunters briefly, but they dropped him. He was still doing real estate, but nothing that showed up on cable.

Dean refuses to feel guilty about that. Sam gave him a few lectures but, in the end, family was still more important to Dean.

Their definitions of family just differed a lot.

-

 

Sam didn’t attend the wedding.

Charlie was his best groomswoman. Elizabeth was Benny’s. They had matching almost redheads which was cute for photo ops, he was assured. The wedding actually had really good attendance. A few of network execs even attended. Dean had invited his crew from the show, and a few of the camera men he had gotten beers with before.

Benny’s crew from his ever expanding carpenting business also came. Dean knew them intimately well from working with them on his previous show. Sam hadn’t known about him and Benny then either.

-

His honeymoon is spent with Benny, renovating the farm on their acre. They build up and extend the porch. They give everything a new layer of white. They section off areas of their acreage for future animals. They start an herb garden. Benny sands down the outside porch while Dean sands the perfectly healthy original hardwood flooring inside. Benny joins him inside and they get both floors done within two weeks. Benny lets Dean loose inside the house. He already sees the designs for what he wants once they knock down the walls that need to go.

-

 _Why didn’t you tell me_ , he asks Dean on the phone after a month of not speaking to him. Sam sounds sad. Sam sounds drunk.

You would have told me it was a bad idea. You would have told me to think of the network.

_It is a bad idea, Dean._

Sam, you know me. You know I’ve wanted a family. I finally found someone to have that with, and you’re gonna guilt me? Like I don’t have enough churchgoers giving me dirty glares?

_But I’m your family._

Why did Sam want him to choose. The rings were on fingers. The baby was on the way. Why did he think this was a fight?

-

Their daughter is born in September of the second year of his hiatus, Lisa delivering a healthy baby girl . Dean resists blogging about it.

Benny surprises him when he’s driving back to the farm one day. Most farms in the area had long driveways with a sign somewhere stating the name.

In steel wrought letters forming cursive words, Dean reads _Lafitte-Campbell_ Farms.

-

Benny still has his carpenting business, and it leaves Dean to do things around the farm. They already had fences for the chicken coop. Dean was rearing in get some baby goats in here come another two years, when Mary was a little older.

He also has the problem of the ton of spare staging furniture he owns in a storage unit and doesn’t know what to do with it.

It doesn’t help that he keeps going into town to the more eclectic décor and furniture shops to perfect their home. He keeps seeing must have pieces when he and Benny go out of town together. Dean keeps bringing more of them back from Antique fairs,

-But Benny, it’s an eighty year old school bell!

-Benny they’re awesome original maps.

-Benny stop complaining, this bookshelf is priceless. Lift with your knees.

( _-You’re gonna break my back one day you know, and it’s not gonna be in a fun way._ )

-What are you talking about,  I’m always fun.

-

It becomes evident soon enough that the storage shed they have on site could be a small business.

With a small dividend of the savings from Dean’s work on the show, he buys and opens up his own eclectic furniture shop in town.

 

He takes Mary to work on the shop every day. In her baby seat, he sets her down and starts arranging shelves and shelves of items. Spare old tables become display areas. Table runners are set.

He has a complex tagging system that still boils down to handwriting the values on a tag, like a real antique fair.

Towards the last few days, Benny and two of his crew take time off work to help Dean move some of the heavier items from his storage unit. Dean kisses him in thanks in front of his employees, and smirks when they play gag at them and tell them to get a room.

“I ain’t paying you to watch,” Benny cuts at them, and Dean takes pride in the blush he put on Benny’s cheeks.

The night before opening day, Dean signs into his blog for the first time in two and a half years.

-

Charlie tweets about his newest blog post, whatever that means. So does Kevin although Dean isn’t sure about what Kevin was doing up so late at night when he had to be at the store bright and early tomorrow morning.

The point is when Dean wakes up, he doesn’t expect three calls from local news stations wanting to do an OP-ED on his alternative family.

-

Dean never considered himself a celebrity, even with a show on local cable. He didn’t really get stopped on the street unless it was someone from town he already saw day to day.

When he and Sam worked together, they were flown out for the show. Sometimes a middle aged mother here or there would recognize them, but it wasn’t that frequent to be considered normal.

Dean adapted to colder weather and Sam to different markets.

But he never actually left town. He was always still going back home. Back to Benny, and their dates. Back to his friends and family.

And it’s not like his hometown didn’t know about Benny. They knew. Some had problems, some didn’t, but it was never really a secret. Dean had dated women in high school. A few through college. He’d also been spotted at gay bars.  

He had brought home a boyfriend to mom and grandma before.

He married Benny in full sight of his mother and grandmother and friends and cousins and Benny’s own extended family, those who approved and disapproved alike because they thrived on good gossip.

So did he consider himself another celebrity feeling safe to come out of the closet?

On the way to work, he calls Charlie.

-

“You’re like, a C list celebrity right now, dude.”

“Okay, but what does that mean? What was I before?”

“I don’t know, like an F list? H list? Your old network promo pics are on some gay blogs that’s all I know.”

“Really?” That’s kind of a surprise.

“Don’t sound so pleased, you’re sharing a space with Taylor Lautner.” Dean grins.

“That just means I’m as popular.” He can feel Charlie roll her eyes.

“Shut up, anyway. Your blog post about your family was really touching even I teared up a bit what can I say. Also all your former fans are getting context for the broship breakup. So, internet drama.”

“Charlie do you even work at your computer company?”

“It’s called IBM and yes, it’s just the work they assign me takes like five minutes of my day so whatever.”

-

One thing he’s grateful for with regards to the popularity of his blog post is the towns people do all come and check out his shop.

That was the intent of the blog post after all. Let people know he had a shop going on. Come by. He didn’t want it to die in its first year after all, and he felt like there was a competitive market for eclectic antique furniture shops in his county and he needed to be able to compete.

He didn’t expect to be listed as a must-see shop stop for antique collectors everywhere  on the list of _101 Great Antique Stores Across America_ released by _Home Goods Magazine._

-

They start getting people from way out of town.

-

Even Benny’s carpentry business starts to get more traction, and Dean spends three days out of six helping Benny keep up the paperwork for his orders.

 

“We need to hire some more help.” Benny says after the fourth night in a row where they’re too exhausted to do anything but go to sleep when they finally get in bed.

-

After another year, the traction they’ve gained within the antiquing buisiness levels. Charlie helps make them a website with a _Lafitte-Campbell_ logo.

 

Mary learns how to say her own name first.

-

 

A year later and the vegetable garden has a fence. They’re growing three kinds of squash.

Benny brings up the idea of having another kid, be it by Lisa or another friend of theirs, or even adopting.

Dean secretly can’t wait.

-

 

Mary is five and she’s teaching her little brother to feed chickens under Dean’s supervision. Benny’s handling the baby goats who need to feed.

Joshua still runs and clings to Dean’s leg when one of the chickens startles him. He doesn’t even reach the height of Dean’s knee yet.

 

-

 

He refuses to do OP-Eds. Benny raises an eyebrow at the amount of messages they receive on the answering machine some days. Dean deletes them methodically.

Benny feeds Mary and Joshua to give Dean time to wind down from the day, with the promise of a hot soak in the tub at the end of his long work week between the farm and the store. They’ve even started doing a minor real estate business locally that Dean’s investing himself in.

Right before they get into the tub though, Benny gets a call.

He sinks into the tub a few minutes after Dean, unusually silent but Dean doesn’t think anything of it. Dean floats to him, (Yeah they have an awesome soaker), and lets Benny’s arms collect around his chest in the warm water.

His hand starts rubbing gentle circles over Dean’s abdomen, causing Dean to close his eyes and forget every ounce of tension in his body.

“They want us to do a show together.”

Dean wants to say no right off the bat.

-

 

 

 

Cain comes by the farm. He was one of the execs Dean had worked with on a previous show. He had implied Dean should keep the relationship off any network affiliated blogs when Dean had first spoken to him about not renewing and in fact going off air entirely for his family.

Cain sets the deal up thus: similar set up to his old show. He gets to find homes for families at an affordable price range.  The catch: They do it locally. It’s all family oriented. Dean gets to bring the families to his home and show them the designs, and the farm gets to be part of the show. He never has to leave his kids alone going out of state.

Benny will do the reno this time, he says. And Dean just needs to do the interiors.

 

“What about real estate?”

Cain shifts awkwardly.

“Some of the other executives behind this idea think adding your brother would bring an interesting mix,” Dean feels his back straighten, something in his gut tighten. Cain looks at him, “I think you can handle it.”

-

 

It takes a month for Benny to properly train his replacement for the carpentry shop.

 

“You absolutely sure you wanna do this?” He asks Dean after an exhaustive hour of trying to get both kids to go to bed and stay in bed.there.

 

“No,” Dean answers honestly. But he looks into Benny’s face and sees the concern and understanding of someone who had always had his back. “But it’ll give us all more business and give the kids more of a college fund. Plus we can always retire early.”

 

Benny tilts his smile to the side.

“You mean you quit working altogether? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

 

-

The problem becomes what is too affectionate on camera.

 

Benny’s hand goes around his waist during the first day of shooting the pilot, when they’re introducing themselves in front of the camera. The producer on the side freaks.

Dean winces because Benny is already uncomfortable under all the lights and the unfamiliar feeling of stage makeup and general formal feeling of an informal introduction. And Dean can tell Benny is getting anxious even if Benny is hiding it well.

 

The producer settles when Dean glares at him while entwining his and Benny’s hands together.

 

Somehow, they give their first introduction to the camera while managing to at least appear comfortable, without being intimate.

-

 

Benny relaxes more when he’s able to handle the kids on camera.

 

“These are just candid shots of your family life,” Crowley emphasizes over the director, “act natural.”

 

Benny takes the kids out to feed the chickens and play with the goats and Dean’s right next to him, helping joshua walk by letting him stand on Dean’s own boots.

 

Mary takes a liking to camera attention immediately and Dean reminds himself to limit the kid’s exposure to direct contact with the crew.

 

-

 

Actually guiding families from slightly out of town into finding and renovating their new farmhouse was an entirely different process of navigating their onscreen relationship. It was the pilot, but Crowley seemed to shut up this time around.

 

So when it got to the point where Dean and Benny had to stage the problem conversation, Dean had his own twist to add.

 

On _Property Bros_ , there was always a problem with the house that the owners might also have a conflict of interest with. Sometimes it was staged or over exaggerated but most of the time it was a real concern.

 

This problem is real. The roof isn’t up to code and they’ll need to get it redone, but the budget doesn’t have enough to cover the cost.

 

Dean is supposed to bring this problem up to Benny on camera, and convince Benny to talk to them.

 

So Dean does all that, except he digs his hands into his back pockets and flutters his eyelashes too.

 

“Can you talk to them, babe? You got a way with people.”

 

Benny’s grin reveals his perfectly even white teeth, and Benny’s demeanor goes the way of honey, slow and sticky sweet.

 

“It’s ‘cause of that cajun southern charm of mine, ain’t it darlin’.”

 

Dean play rolls his eyes and has trouble keeping the smile off his face.

 

“Oh yeah, real charmer. So you’ll do it, right?”

 

They’re in on this joke together, and Benny’s eyes look at Dean with relief.

 

“Only to spare you. This time.”

 

What’s amazing is Crowley had been quiet the whole time.

-

 

The pilot airs, and Crowley explodes into their answering machine to be ready immediately the next morning for shooting.

 

It tested extremely well with most demographics, even locally.

 

“Some of your best hits were in the two bit parts. So more of that.” Crowley directs.

Dean isn’t even sure what the point of the poor director is.

-

 

Benny gets more comfortable in front of the camera this time, too. By the time of the conflict resolution parts, they start to bicker.

 

“I didn’t say five by fives I said two by twos.” Dean frowns with frustration and Benny cracks a smile.

 

“I know, I just like seeing you get worked up.”

 

Dean play shoves at his chest and stalks away and Benny keeps grinning and follows after him off camera.

-

 

“Oh yeah well you know what?” Benny inquires.

“What.” Dean says with a straight face.

Benny ducks in and kisses his nose. Dean curses inside and blushes in view of the camera. Unfair ways to win fake fights.

-

 

Dean spends time with the house on the last two days always, staging it right, making it feel like home.

 

Benny ends up surprising him the first time, bringing the kids over with a box of pizza.

 

“I know you like to lock yourself away, but don’t want you to miss a family dinner.” Benny explains. Dean smiles gratefully, and carries his kids in both arms to greet them.

 

-

 

The next time they do family dinner in the renno house, the cameras want to be there too. Dean gives the network restrictions.

-

 

Sometimes Dean leaves for one work or the other, and Mary and Joshua cling to him and ask him not to go, call in sick and stay home.

 

Needing to pry his children away from his leg and tell them he can’t breaks his heart.

-

 

He starts to count down the days until they’re done with the first season. Benny joins him.

 

“It’s fun,” he concedes,  “but I kind of like having the place to ourselves too.”

 

“I feel like I’m not getting to watch the kids grow up,” Dean tries to swallow past the lump in his throat. He keeps hearing Joshua’s voice pleading for him to stay.

 

-

 

What little free time Dean does have in his work day is spent entirely with the kids in the garden or in the goat enclosement. Mary wants a piglet and Dean thinks it’s a good idea.

 

Joshua wants a penguin. Dean doesn’t shoot it down and discourages Mary’s sassy response calling it silly.

 

-

Dean wakes up one night, startled by a dream he couldn’t remember. He leaves Benny’s warm embrace and goes downstairs to get a cup of water.

That’s when he sees Sam’s car in the driveway, and Sam sitting on the hood.

He looks absolutely morose through the screen door.

Dean walks outside. Sam doesn’t look surprised to see him in naught but a purple bathrobe and boxers.

 

“Sam,” Dean says with uncertainty.

 

Sam looks at him with red rimmed eyes. Dean is worried he might have been driving drunk.

 

“Are you happy?”

 

Dean thinks it’s a weird question with an obvious answer, but he answers anyway.

 

“Yeah. Yes I’m happy. Are you drunk?” Sam shakes his head.

 

“Dad’s dead, you know.”

 

Dean kind of knew about John. His mom had called with the news a few days ago. Dean had seen so little of the man in his life he didn’t really consider him anything relevant.

 

“You doing okay, Sam?”

 

“Just makes you realize… how important family really is. You know?” Sam’s voice gets watery. Dean nods, hates his call sheet saying he has to be up in three hours.

 

“You wanna come inside, Sam?” Dean asks sincerely.

 

Sam nods, and looks more vulnerable and desperate than Dean had seen him in a while.

 

-

 

Benny doesn’t ask questions about the overgrown man on their couch. He gives Dean a silent questioning look, mouths ‘you okay?” in the kitchen, and reroutes the kids outside while Sam sleeps off the crying hangover.  Keep them from meeting their estranged and unintelligible uncle.

 

-

 

“I get it man, I do. Finally.” Sam confides. “I never really understand you and mom and the way you talked about family like you could keep out or take in anyone you wanted. And you know I was never okay about the way she kicked dad out when we were kids.” Dean huffed at that because yeah he remembered Sam’s tantrums when Mom was working two jobs and Dean was the one heating up dinners for Sam for a week. Things got better when Grandma came to live with them, but not by much for a while.

 

“But you find happiness with the people who make you happy. Dad died alone, no one showed up to tell him goodbye.  I don’t want that. I get that, finally. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

 

Dean nods because he doesn’t really know what to say.

Except,

 

“Good. Because Benny and the kids make me really happy. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.” Sam nods his head up and down, doesn’t look slighted by Dean’s words.

 

“They, uh, they look beautiful. Your kids.” He nods to the wall of pictures behind Dean.

 

Dean’s mouth twitches and he fights down his middle aged parent urge to dig out his phone and show Sam all three thousand photos of his family.

 

“They are.”

 

“How old?”

 

“Mary’s almost seven, Joshua is five.”

 

“Almost close to that school age, huh?” Sam’s hands are squeezing each other between his legs. He’s huddled in on himself like he’s trying to make himself smaller in Dean’s home.

 

“You can meet them when they get back from set,” Dean offers. Sam looks up,  hopeful.

 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Benny will be back with them soon.”

“Oh. Cool.”

 

“You’re gonna have to get over your dislike for Benny if you want this to work.” Sam looks at him with guilty eyes but he still nods.

-

Sam stays for dinner, passes on wine, talks to the kids very casually. Mary wants to braid his hair. Joshua wants to know how he got so big.

 

He even makes passing conversation with Benny about how his business is going, which is a start.

 

At the end of dinner, Dean offers him a spare bed, but Sam shakes his head and says something about seeing mom tonight.

-

 

“You have a beautiful home, Dean. I won’t lie and say I’m not jealous.” Sam says at the side of his car when they’re alone.

 

“You could always find it too.”

 

Sam barks a laugh out.

 

“No way. I’m definitely not cut out for the farming acres and farm animals crap. No offence.”

 

“Don’t knock it till you try it, dude.” Dean shrugs. He’s relieved at the lighter feeling in the air between them already.

 

-

 

“Kids wanna know when their giant uncle is coming to visit again,” Benny says when Dean crawls into bed and into waiting arms.

 

“Probably not too long ‘till another visit.”

 

“Notice he didn’t try to threaten me with any guns like the first time we were together in front of him. Big improvement.” Benny commented in his version of neutral.

 

“Just be nice. I wanna give him a chance.”

 

“Whatever you want, Dean. I’ll try for your sake, but you’re the one I care about here.” He answers honestly. Dean doesn’t expect anything else.

 

-

They finish filming the first season of the show, and Dean spends the whole first week off with his children at his mother and grandmother’s house.

 

Benny’s taking care of the home business and tells Dean to go ahead. He insists on it, almost drives Dean and the kids there himself.

 

“You coming to christmas at the farm this year?”

 

“Don’t I come every year,” her apple cheeks are reddish, like she’d been sunburned recently. Probably spending too much mowing her lawn. Dean wishes he could do that for her still.

 

“We have a lot of room over there you know. Two guest bedrooms.”

 

“Me and your grammie are doing just fine here baby, but thank you for your fiftieth offer. Did you know your brother’s been stopping by a lot more?”

 

Dean didn’t, but he nods.

 

“He stopped by the farm house. Said a lot of things I’m pretty sure he meant.”

 

“Your father’s death seems to have really affected him.” She agrees.

 

“Yeah,” he echoes, looks down at the edges of her pink dress.

 

“Sweetie, how are you doing?” her cool hand cups his face. He gives her a smile.

 

“I’m good, mom.”

-

He writes a blog post in december, just in time for christmas recommendations.

He attaches another vlog to it.

 

This time, he’s introducing the newest addition to their family: Rosemary, the piglet. Mary had named her so there was no pointing fingers for the faulty comparisons later.

Mary is about to start school next fall, which is too soon for Dean to be honest.

He conveys all this in the vlog.

 

He talks about going to a realtor convention with Sam in a few weeks, and even more exciting the statewide antique fair with Benny and the kids as their first official family trip.

 

He talks about redecorating Mary’s room and letting her pick out her own unique statement pieces.

 

He talks about the process of converting Joshua’s room from a nursery to a little boy’s room with a deadly lego maze for a floor that Benny was close to burning twice weekly. Dean was the one calming him down from pain and turning to Joshua and talking him through lessons about picking up after himself.

 

When it’s all said and done, he shuts off the camera. He notices Benny leaning against the doorframe. He’s got his arms crossed against his solid chest, the ring on his left finger visible and glinting in the morning light.

 

“Mary’s getting impatient for someone to join her in painting her new room pink.”

 

The headache of showing Mary color swatches was behind him which was the bigger victory in Dean’s opinion.

 

Benny catches his waist in an arm when Dean moves past him, swinging him back and knocking their waists together.. Dean anticipated it, arches an eyebrow at the look of Benny’s hedonistic grin.

 

“Just like looking at you sometimes.”

 

“‘Course you do,” Dean pecks a kiss to Benny’s mouth and slips out of the embrace with a promise of later tonight.

 

Mary is waiting in her room sitting on a can of paint with her chin propped on the heels of her hand. Her blonde hair is tied up into a messy bun. She’s got one of Dean’s old shirts on, and one of her rattier  jean shorts.

 

By the time they finish the room, Mary is half covered in pink. So is Dean.

 

-

 

They decline to sign on for a second season. The first remains quietly popular.

 

Dean’s vlog offers the fine print.

 

“I don’t want to lose anymore family over another show. I hope everyone can understand that.”

 

He turns off the video camera this time, alone again. It felt so much like the time so many years ago.

 

He twists his ring, and the flutters of nerves buzz down slowly.

 

He closes his camera and puts it away. He closes the door to his bedroom and walks down the stairs to where he hears his family.

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  



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